Biography

Dr. William Tomford earned his BA from the University of North Carolina and his MD from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He trained at Johns Hopkins Hospital in general surgery and graduated from the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program. Following his residency, he was a Scientific Investigator and Director of the U.S. Navy Tissue Bank at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Following his work at the Navy Medical Research Institute, Dr. Tomford became a faculty member at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He also was appointed as Director of the then-newly formed MGH Bone Bank. Dr. Tomford developed the clinical program at MGH in bone banking and transplantation. He has worked with the American Association of Tissue Banks to develop standards for banking bone and other musculoskeletal tissues. Dr. Tomford authored a book on tissue banking that is used nationally and internationally by those interested in the banking and transplantation of allografts in orthopaedics.

Research & Publications

Dr. Tomford's research interests are in musculoskeletal tissue banking. As the Director, the MGH Bone Bank has provided more than 3,000 allografts to surgeons at MGH. Each of these grafts can be traced from donors to recipients, and records are maintained on over 600 donors.

Dr. Tomford is considered an authority on musculoskeletal tissue banking. He has written a textbook on the subject, and continues to do research and to lecture throughout the world on orthopaedic allografts. Additionally, Dr. Tomford has helped start and/or served as a consultant to bone banks in Japan, China, Thailand, Korea, Israel, Italy, Norway, Brazil and Spain as well as numerous bone banks in the US.